More exciting Space Race?

[Optimizer]

Are there any ideas of how to make the space race more exciting?

Due to game mechanics, everything has to start with the Apollo Program and end with launching the spaceship, but we should be able to add things you must do in between.

Two aspects from Civ 1 & 2 were lost in Civ 3 - the variable ship size and the flight time.

What are your modding suggestions for making the space race more of a strategic challenge?

[MoonWolf]

Maybe requiring all the luxury recources to build space-parts? Not very realistic though, but let's say the people won't accept spending so many resources on spaceship unless they are very happy. Or what about make the price for producing the parts double or triple?

[Jamski]

Give the AI all of the space ship (apart fromSpaceflight) techs before the game starts, then when it has researched Spaceflight and built the Apollo Programm it can start building all components at once. Now _this_ is exciting...
(and hard to win)

-Jam

[Colonel Kraken]

Or, totally modify the Modern Age tech tree . . .

[NeOmega]

Somoeone once suggested having 10 rare elements scattered sparsely across the map, and requiring one of those elements be required for each of the 10 spaceship parts (I thnik there are ten) even if no,t you get the picture right?

[Centauri18]

I've mentioned this before, but maybe the Apollo Program should be a requirement for another small wonder that would come later: The Mars Project. As I mentiones in the 'Small Wonder Ideas' thread, it would be much more convincing if people went first to the moom, then Marco, then the stars.
And requiring the Apollo Program to build the Mars Project would be much more convincing as well, because we couldn't go to Mars without the knowledge we gained from going to the moom, and otherwise you could just build it in the game without even considering the Apollo Program. And maybe the Apollo Program could increase science spending?

[Amesjustin]

I haven't played with them, but in the editor you can choose how many parts needed to build the shuttle, as well as choose how many pieces of each piece need to be built. In other words, you can specify that you need 12 pieces instead of 10 (adding the 2 new pieces as improvements) or you can specify that all 10 of the original pieces need to be built twice.

Of course, I haven't actually TRIED to do ant of this, but it IS in the editor, and we all know Firaxis wouldn't have included something if it didn't work flawlessly...

-J

[WarpStorm]

You can increase the number of parts, the cost of parts and the required techs (they are too clustered right now).

[Optimizer]

One could require certain city improvements to build some of the parts.

One of my ideas is to have a part called "The Ark" which can only be built in a city with the small wonder National Zoo. The National Zoo is built in two steps, the first requiring Horses and Elephants, and the second requiring Silks and Furs.

A part called the Space Ship Command would have to be built in your capital.

[NeOmega]

One could require certain city improvements to build some of the parts.

One of my ideas is to have a part called "The Ark" which can only be built in a city with the small wonder National Zoo. The National Zoo is built in two steps, the first requiring Horses and Elephants, and the second requiring Silks and Furs.

A part called the Space Ship Command would have to be built in your capital.

That too is a great idea.

[Centauri18]

The Ark would be very cool. We could increase the number of Strategic resorces by, say, adding animals as strategic resources in the endgame?

But the Space Race Tech tree ought to have more to it. Fusion, maybe. Cryonics, of course, or some sort of hibernation tech. Not to mention new polymers used to build colonies on the new planet. And possibly space weapons - to destroy any stray meteoroids and such. And micrometeoroid shields and sentient AI to pilot the damn ship...
All kinds of things like that. And I really like the Ark idea.

[WarpStorm]

The AU mod spreads the techs required through most of the modern era. This helps. The thing I found that'll force your game into future techs is to require a lot of Thrusters and raise their cost). You can only have one city building it at a time (more if you prebuild) so it takes a while.

[MoonWolf]

Originally posted by Centauri18
But the Space Race Tech tree ought to have more to it. Fusion, maybe. Cryonics, of course, or some sort of hibernation tech. Not to mention new polymers used to build colonies on the new planet. And possibly space weapons - to destroy any stray meteoroids and such. And micrometeoroid shields and sentient AI to pilot the damn ship...
All kinds of things like that. And I really like the Ark idea.

Simply start Master of Orion when you finish Civ3! Serious, agree, when the world is reaching the space-age, it's a total focus on it. Should be a space-era...

[Centauri18]

Anybody agree with me about the Mars Project thing and making the Apollo Program a requirement to build it? You know, sort of a 'crawl before you walk' kind of thing.

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Centauri18
Anybody agree with me about the Mars Project thing and making the Apollo Program a requirement to build it? You know, sort of a 'crawl before you walk' kind of thing.

I would go further:

Advance "Spaceflight" = construct Improvement "Space Launch Facility"

"Sputnik" Minor Wonder must then be built where an SLF is.

Then -- what was the name of the Soviet capsule Gagarin went up in? -- likewise Minor Wonder, must also be at SLF.

Then Apollo.

Then a Space Station ...

Of course, the greater the number of intervening steps, the more adjustments which must be made to the modern era.

-- I've been wondering if anyone has been fiddling with the Starship graphics screen?? It occurs to me that a different approach might be taken entirely, and that -- instead of linked starship components -- minor wonders like the Hubble and a manned Space Station might replace the starship entirely, with a complete collection of orbital facilities and/or accomplishments replacing the patently ridiculous notion of a starship launch by 2050. We'll be lucky to have landed people on Mars by then ...

-Oz